She found herself in a large, airy light space. The walls were white, as were the curtains. Through one window she could see the street beyond, lined with restaurants and boutiques. Cars whizzed by, but the sound of them didn't seem to penetrate inside the apartment. The floor was polished wood, the furniture white-painted wood or upholstered couches with colorful throw pillows. A section of the apartment was set up as a sort of studio. Light poured down from a skylight onto a long wooden table. There were easels, cloths tossed over them to obscure their contents. A paint-stained smock hung from a hook on the wall.
Standing by the table was a woman. Clary would have guessed her age at about Jocelyn's, if there had not been several factors obscuring her age. She wore a shapeless black smock that hid her body; only her white hands and her face and throat were visible. On each of her cheeks was carved a thick black rune, running from the outside corner of her eye to her lips. Clary had not seen the runes before, but she could sense their meaning-power, skill, workmanship. The woman had thick long auburn hair, falling in waves to her waist, and her eyes, when she raised them, were a peculiar flat orange color, like a dying flame.
The woman clasped her hands in front of her smock loosely. In a nervous, melodic voice, she said, "Tu dois etre Jonathan Morgenstern. Et elle, c'est ta sœur? Je pensais que-"
"I am Jonathan Morgenstern," Sebastian said. "And this is my sister, yes. Clarissa. Please speak English in front of her. She doesn't understand French."
The woman cleared her throat. "My English is rusty. It has been years since I used it."
"It seems good enough to me. Clarissa, this is Sister Magdalena. Of the Iron Sisters."
Clary was startled into speech. "But I thought the Iron Sisters never left their fortress-"
"They don't," said Sebastian. "Unless they are disgraced by having their part in the Uprising discovered. Who do you think armed the Circle?" He smiled at Magdalena mirthlessly. "The Iron Sisters are Makers, not fighters. But Magdalena fled the Fortress before her part in the Uprising could be discovered."
"I had not seen another Nephilim in fifteen years until your brother contacted me," said Magdalena. It was hard to tell who she was looking at while she spoke; her featureless eyes seemed to wander, but she was clearly not blind. "Is it true? Do you have the... material?"
Sebastian reached into a pouch hanging from his weapons belt and took from it a chunk of what looked like quartz. He set it down on the long table, and a stray shaft of sunlight, passing across the skylight, lit it seemingly from within. Clary caught her breath. It was the adamas from the junk shop in Prague.
Magdalena drew in a hissing breath.
"Pure adamas," said Sebastian. "No rune has ever touched it."
The Iron Sister came around the table and laid her hands upon the adamas. Her hands, also scarred with multiple runes, trembled. "Adamas pur," she whispered. "It has been years since I touched the holy material."
"It is all yours to craft with," said Sebastian. "When you are done, I shall pay you in more of it. That is, if you believe you can create what I asked for."
Magdalena drew herself up. "Am I not an Iron Sister? Did I not take the vows? Do my hands not shape the stuff of Heaven? I can deliver what I promised, Valentine's son. Never doubt it."
"Good to hear." There was a trace of humor in Sebastian's voice. "I will return tonight, then. You know how to summon me if you need to."
Magdalena shook her head. All her attention was back on the glassine substance, the adamas. She stroked it with her fingers. "Yes. You may go."
Sebastian nodded and took a step back. Clary hesitated. She wanted to seize the woman, ask her what Sebastian had demanded she do, ask her why she would ever have broken Covenant Law to work beside Valentine. Magdalena, as if sensing her hesitation, looked up and smiled thinly.
"The two of you," she said, and for a moment Clary thought she was going to say that she did not understand why they were together, that she had heard that they hated each other, that Jocelyn's daughter was a Shadowhunter while Valentine's son was a criminal. But she only shook her head. "Mon Dieu," she said, "but you look just like your parents."
Chapter 16: Brothers and Sisters
When Clary and Sebastian returned to the apartment, the living room was empty, but there were dishes in the sink where there hadn't been before.
"I thought you said Jace was asleep," she said to Sebastian, a note of accusation in her voice.
Sebastian shrugged. "He was when I said it." There was light mockery in his voice but no serious unkindness. They had walked back from Magdalena's together mostly in silence, but not a bad sort of silence. Clary had let her mind wander, only jerked back to reality on occasion by the realization that it was Sebastian she was walking beside. "I'm pretty sure I know where he is."
"In his room?" Clary started for the stairs.
"No." He moved in front of her. "Come on. I'll show you."
He headed up the stairs at a rapid pace and into the master bedroom, Clary on his heels. As she watched in puzzlement, he tapped the side of the wardrobe. It slid away, revealing a set of stairs behind it. Sebastian cast a smirk over his shoulder at her as she came up behind him. "You're kidding," she said. "Secret stairs?"
"Don't tell me that's the strangest thing you've seen today." He took the stairs two at a time, and Clary, though bone-weary, followed him. The stairs curved around and opened out into a wide room with a polished wooden floor and high walls. All manner of weapons hung from the walls, just as they did in the training room in the Institute-kindjals and chakhrams, maces and swords and daggers, crossbows and brass knuckles, throwing stars and axes and samurai swords.
Training circles were neatly painted on the floor. In the center of them stood Jace, his back to the door. He was shirtless and barefoot, in black warm-up pants, a knife in each of his hands. An image flashed in her head: Sebastian's bare back, scarred with unmistakeable whip stripes. Jace's was smooth, pale gold skin over muscle, marked only with the typical scars of a Shadowhunter-and the scratches her own nails had made last night. She felt herself flush, but her mind was still on the question: why would Valentine have whipped one boy but not the other?
"Jace," she said.
He turned. He was clean. The silvery fluid was gone, and his gold hair was almost bronze-dark, pasted damply to his head. His skin glistened with sweat. The expression on his face was guarded. "Where were you?"
Sebastian went to the wall and began to examine the weapons there, running his bare hand along the blades. "I thought Clary might want to see Paris."
"You could have left me a note," said Jace. "It isn't as if our situation is the safest, Jonathan. I'd rather not have to worry about Clary-"
"I followed him," Clary said.